


Ungodly Hour

by chucks_prophet



Series: The Day We Stopped Turning [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean is Papa for reasons, Deputy Sam, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, F/M, Firefighter Benny, Firefighter Dean, Gratuitous Smut, Heavy Angst, M/M, Office Worker Castiel, Officer Eileen, Parents Castiel & Dean Winchester, Police Officer Charlie, Possible Trigger Warnings There, Promotions, September 11 Attacks, With Some Gratuitous Domestic Fluff, Young Claire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 14:01:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7108090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unsettling silence falls on the house. He can only see the back of Claire’s sleep-heavy vanilla hair staring straight ahead, but knows something’s not right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ungodly Hour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shalinabianca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shalinabianca/gifts).



> For the prompt:
> 
> "9/11 AU where everyone lives in NYC and are all human. The archangels are all big-name business men that work in the Twin Towers, and the other angels are workers there (Cas is a little below the archangels; Dean's fiance; they have a young daughter through surrogacy). The Hunters are firefighters and Men of Letters are cops (Dean with the former, Sam the latter. John is actually a pretty nice dad and is the police chief)."
> 
> This is a quick message to those who have been affected by the events of 9/11: Please know I did not write this without keeping you in my thoughts. If anything whatsoever is inaccurate, please tell me. It was not my intention to disrespect you or your family.
> 
> A huge thank you to the firefighters and police officers who served that day. Your heroism will always be remembered.
> 
> Title inspired by the Fray song.
> 
> (Also YAY! 100th fic. A huge thank you to all my regular readers, and the ones who take a chance on lil ol' me every day in the hit count. It's been amazing on ao3. I look forward to a hundred more!)

 

**7:23am**

"Hold it right there, Executive Novak! You're under arrest!"

"Hmm,” Cas says in mock contemplation, pupils wildly thick like a freshly risen doughnut with extra frosting and a promising, lightly penetrating blueberry filling,  “last I checked, you, Lieutenant Smith, were a firefighter, not a Badge. But since you’re so cute, I'll humor you: What am I under arrest for?"

Dean's double-grip on his finger gun doesn't falter. "Hands where I can see 'em!"

"Sorry, sir! I swear I didn't mean to! My boyfriend usually does this, but he's on duty today so I've gotta—"

Cas's finger gun disappears beneath the sheets, and he hoists forward with the sob of a working class man. Dean doesn’t need to see him to know Cas is in like a Thanksgiving Turkey.

"Possession of stolen goods," Dean grits out by a miracle.

"And what goods might, _ah_ —" Cas’s head barely pokes out like a pig in a poke, kisses Cas's naval with little white fireworks. "What goods might those- _oh_ -be?"

"My, uh, my... heart—Oh God, I can't do this anymore."

"Thought you were an atheist," Cas remarks in-between harsh breaths.

"Honey, you can call me a Priest for as much as I'm on my knees."

Cas grins, lifting one of his fingers out to beckon Dean. Dean doesn’t need to be told twice. It’s not until he wraps around Cas like a silk cocoon, Cas’s bare warmth enveloping his front like a pair of newly hatched butterfly wings, that he drinks in a low “ _Shit.”_

“What’s up?” Dean asks between sowing soft, drippy kisses into Cas’s neck.

“I forgot to make Claire’s lunch.”

“’s alright, angel, she doesn’t leave for another hour.”

“But I have to leave like—” Cas glances at the alarm on the nightstand, “—right now. I’m not boss _yet_ , and you know how Raphael gets if—” Dean feels Cas try to worm out of his embrace, but he’s not having any of it. Cas is strapped to his front tighter than a toddler in a booster seat.

“Hey,” he says into the sensitive part of his ear, “I’ll make her lunch.”

Cas turns his head. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Dean chuckles against his hair, “I think I can handle a PB&J.”

“No, I mean, don’t you have an early shift?”

“Mmnmm, Cesar’s covering for me.”

“Why’s he—?” When Cas turns around fully, he’s met by the forestry in Dean’s eyes, the raining amber orbiting around his two tiny little earths only for Castiel. There’s no need for an answer—not when Dean kisses him like an astronaut getting the last out of his oxygen tank, breathing into him more than anything before rediscovering gravity, and flips Cas so he’s pressed against the double bed with a low squeak. “ _Oh.”_

Dean laughs wickedly before smacking his lips next to Cas’s ear like a conch shell, “I’ll… race you to the shower!” he yells, hopping off Cas.

Newly abandoned Cas shakes his head with a wry grin. “You’ll regret this, Lieutenant!”

**7:51am**

Castiel’s days aren’t normally this rushed.

It’s easier to blame his fiancé, who’s more than strategic when it comes to the art of persuasion. Little does Dean know all he has to do to get Cas to do… well, anything, is sic those eyes like freshly sliced kiwis on him. There’s no need for the cheeky smile, or the deeper-than-the-Colorado rumbling voice that always sends rivers of sweet nothings splashing into his ear, or the big, beefy arms that keep him from floating away…

In fact, everything about Dean is leisurely. It’s calm, it’s sensuous—it’s the only thing that makes sense.

With that thought, Cas locks his _dine-o-sore_ , as Claire puts it, fixes his tie for the fourth time this morning, and embarks on a half mile journey to his destination. Shorter than usual.

“Castiel!”

Cas turns his head in the direction of Alfie, the twenty-something intern from Chicago. He’s nice enough, although, poor guy, Cas wonders if anyone will ever take him seriously. The kid looks like a child star clutching a little too tight onto his former glory. “Alfie,” he greets. “You look well.”

“Thanks, you too!” Alfie exclaims, playfully fisting Cas’s shoulder. The tuxedo wrinkles on impact. Alfie cringes a little. “Oh shoot! Sorry, I didn’t mean to, um… there. Sorry, I didn’t swing by to mess up your suit.”

Cas’s eyebrows fall almost comically onto his eyes. “What _are_ you doing here, Alfie?”

“Oh, well, you know…”

“You’re drunk.”

Alfie’s hazel eyes blow open. “Oh my God, see, this is why you’re gonna make a great head to the company. I always said you had too much heart, but clearly—”

“Alfie,” Cas repeats, “what are you doing here?”

Alfie pauses for a breath, then: “Oh! _Oh._ Yeah, okay, so Anna and Zeke and Balthazar, we’re down at the pub on…” Alfie swivels behind him and points to pretty much everywhere _but_ the local bar. “When we thought ‘Oh my God’, you know who should be here?”

“I’m stumped.”

“You, Castiel, you!”

Cas can’t keep a lid on his laugh any longer as he retorts, “Wish I _could_ go on a bender, buddy, but I have that meeting, remember? You know the one to be the _hearty_ head of the company?”

“Oh. _Oh!_ Oh, that’s today,” Alfie says, scratching his head before laying a hand on Cas’s shoulder. His suit wrinkles. Again. “Good luck, man. You deserve it. We’ll save you a cold one, alright?”

**8:46am**

“What do you _mean_ the fire department’s short on staff?!”

“ _Mr. Wesson—”_

“That’s Deputy Wesson to you,” Sam spat. His eyes ran in dizzying circles. Swarming the building is a flood of NYC natives, talking above the noise of the twenty inch television in his office:

**“—rumored not one, but _two_ planes crashed into the World Trade Center. Locals surrounding the scene are baffled, and cannot provide further insight at this time.” **

_“_ Deputy, _Singer can’t get ahold of Lieutenant Smith—”_

“I don’t care where he is, goddammit! We need more people containing the scene! There’s only so much the police force can do! There are only so many resources—”

“ _With all due respect, Deputy, what can we do about the locals? We can’t quarantine them all.”_

“We can damn well try!” Sam cringes after saying that. When did he become his father?

“Deputy.”

Sam’s slender, supersize-me hands wrap around the base of the landline, drinking in the figure at his door— _really_ drinking her in. Her brown bun is folded behind her ears, which are adorned with blue druzies. Her cheekbones are especially pink today, highlighting the constellation-like freckles around her temples. Her brown eyes, like a shiny new penny, pool with concern, magnifying the reflection of the face he’s still trying to love and accept before anyone in his reports.

He wants to remember her like this. Just in case.

“Officer Eileen,” he breathes, wrapping the phone cord around the length of his wooden desk to pull out a chair. “Come in, what’s up?”

“I can’t stay long, I actually… um…” With shaking hands, she signs _death a_ nd _family._

Sam brings the phone to his ear again more uncertainly. “I’ll call you back,” he says, promptly hanging up. Eileen’s head’s angled to the ground now. Sam places a hand on her shoulder, signing with the other: _Who?_

“Charlie,” she whispers just before covering her mouth as a sob hits the back of her throat.

Charlie is— _was—_ more family to Sam than his own father, the Police Chief. She was the whole reason Sam even decided to go into the family business, to do what he does best: help people.

The end is truly near.

**9:03am**

“Papa, why did you change to the news?”

“Claire, you shouldn’t even be watching TV, we have to be out the door in twenty,” Dean remarks, pinching the Ziploc bag shut, which may or may not be smeared with _Smuckers._ Cas is way better with the uncrustables. He’s even somehow mastered the art of cutlery to carve them into little gooey hearts.

But Claire takes after Dean, relentless as the sun rising in the morning: “Papa?”

Dean pushes the lunchbox aside and hangs his head over the counter, mentally and physically preparing for the next 20 Questions. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“Where does daddy work?”

“The World Trade Center, sweetie, you know that.”

“Are you sure?”

Dean laughs windedly, “Yes, I’m sure, honey, why do you ask?”

An unsettling silence falls on the house. He can only see the back of Claire’s sleep-heavy vanilla hair staring straight ahead, but knows something’s not right.

Dean swings behind the counter to get a better look at the television, which is, in fact, stuck on Channel 5, with the brunette chick carrying way too many apples in her carriage. He’s about to shut it off to prove a point _w_ hen a flash of exploding light comes across the screen.

“Claire, go to your room.”

“But—”

“ _Go,”_ Dean sterns. As soon as Claire’s out of sight, he cranks up the volume:

**“Multiple eyewitnesses on Fulton Street confirm a second explosion to the South Tower. There are no new developments on the North Tower, hit just twenty minutes earlier. Local firefighters are…”**

- _“No problem, man, you and that sexy fiancé of yours deserve a little you-time.”_

_-Lazy kisses in the shower. Tongues making their own studs. Fingers tracing maps and new routes on skin._

_-“You’ll regret this, Lieutenant!”_

Dean’s knees sink into the floor.

**12:05pm**

It suffices to say this isn’t one of Sam’s favorite parts of the job.

It’s hard enough dealing with the actual scene that took place behind him. The people are harder. It’s like their brains are light switches and chaos tapes it across the middle.

So when a six-foot-something surly man approaches him on the street, he says what he’s taught to say in situations like these: “Excuse me, sir, you can’t be here, this is official police business.”

Even though…hell, no situation is like _this._

“Official police business?!” the man barks. “My _fiancé_ is in there you bellied-out blueberry!”

“Try you and half of NYC,” Sam remarks. “There’s no way you’re getting past that tape without a—”

“He’s with us!” a gruff Cajun voice yells. When Sam turns around, he’s met with a man with piercing blue eyes underneath his protective mask and a body built to tackle the toughest stains. _Reds._ He should’ve known the guy’s a red. “No need’ta get your doughnuts in a twist there, Chief,” he says, big, sausage-like hands curling around Sam’s shoulder, “Dean here’s the Lieutenant.”

Sam scoffs, “So _you’re_ the top of the Missing Persons. Thank God. We’re all saved.”

“Benny,” the man, Dean, breathes, ignoring Sam in favor of clutching a handful of Benny’s flame-retardant suit, “please…”

Benny peels back his breathing apparatus to look Dean in the eye despite the smoke clouding around them. “I’m sorry, brotha, I-I—”

Dean chokes back a staccato-like sob as Benny pulls him in. It’s a sight to see, even for someone like Sam, who’s been on the force for years. You never get used to watching someone lose their loved one.  It’s actually part of the reason his father promoted him. Not because of favoritism, but because Sam was one of the only cops who knew how to sympathize so well with the victims.

Sam can’t help wonder, watching two men embrace on the street corner, how he lost his sense of purpose.

Sam whips his phone out of his back pocket and opens up a new text:

_Hey, Eileen. I get that it’s insanely bad timing, but… would you want to get a cup of coffee sometime?_

**12:05pm**

“I haven’t heard anything,” Benny says, pulling back. “He was the first person I looked for, believe me. Cesar, too, before him and Jesse…”

Dean goes rigid, unlike the humidity piercing through his clothes. “What?”

“They’re gone, man,” Benny says, voice wavering, “they… they went down swingin’. All of ‘em.”

Dean’s head feels like a balloon slowly losing pressure. With every pinch of breath, he feels light, queasy.

Cesar, he _died_ because of Dean. He and Jesse fell in love on the job before making a plan to retire to a New Mexico farmhouse, raise horses—be _normal_ for once. 

And Aiden, he was the youngest of the crew, fresh out of the can at 18. He had his whole life ahead of him, maybe even with this girl he was eyeing, Krissy. She stops by the firehouse sometimes. She has long brown hair and a skin tag just under her left brown eye. She’s nice. But she might not be after today.

And Gordon. Gordon had a hell of a temper, especially when it came to the Feds, but he loved his crew. He was best friends with Victor, the jokester of the group for someone whose adoptive daughter, Nancy, was ripped away from him just shy of her thirtieth birthday.

So many more people. So many more stories.

And more won’t be told, thanks to Dean’s selfish love for a man he couldn’t save.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. He’s tempted to ignore it altogether, but Benny’s already pulled away, gone to help the others—the ones that are still _left_ —clean up the wreckage.

“Hello?”

“ _Dean?!”_

Dean’s balloon flattens like a pancake. “Cas?!”

_-Lazy kisses in the shower. Tongues making their own studs. Fingers tracing maps and new routes on skin._

_"I hope they don't change the interview location,” Cas groans against soft lips on his collarbone. “God, I swear, for someone looking at a penthouse, I have to work to get a bone in my own personal doghouse.”_

_Dean lifts his head to capture the moment and Cas’s bottom lip. "They're gonna love you, babe. I do."_

_Dean feels a shiver pass through Cas disguised as laugh, “That's because you're bias."_

_"And super horny."_

_Cas snorts, running his hands up Dean’s aggrieved neck, "Whose fault is that?"_

_"Definitely yours,” Dean smarts without a literal lick of hesitation._

_"Wow, okay, there's definitely no shortage of bones in this house with all the ones you're picking."_

_Mutual laughing. Bodies pressing closer. Eyes opening new windows to the soul. “Alright, Novak, let’s try this again,” Dean says, steeling himself, “anything you say can and will be held against you. Choose your words wisely.”_

_Cas pulls back to look at Dean—pupils wildly thick like a freshly risen doughnut with extra frosting and a promising, lightly penetrating blueberry filling. “I’ll take you, Lieutenant.”_

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued . . .


End file.
